The Ultra-Fast Broadband Initiative is a New Zealand Government programme that aims to bring high-speed fibre to 75% of NZ homes and businesses over 10 years.
The company that manages the $1.5 billion project is Crown Fibre Holdings (CFH), a Crown-owned company.
CFH has also partnered up with Northpower, Waikato Networks, Enable Services and Chorus to help implement the initiative.
At this stage, around 19 of New Zealand's towns and cities have access to UFB, providing Kiwi businesses with the opportunity to further improve day to day operations.
For business owner Andy Hamilton, UFB was so good at work, he had to deploy it at home too.
He says that being able to come home, see the kids and do work once they're in bed without upload and download issues is great.
"Once we saw Telecom put some offers out for UFB, I basically got on the phone and used the 0800 number and said 'hey I want it'," says Hamilton.
What I was amazed with, was the next day I had a phone call from Chorus saying they'd like to arrange the install within five days.
However, Sivashaikar Subramaniam, delivery technician with Chorus says the installation process depends on the house and every house is different.
'Basically what we do is we run the fibre from a point outside the house to the inside, then from there we do the internal wiring," he explains.
"Customers can shorten the installation process by helping us figure out where they would like the home hub to be situated.
Since deploying UFB, Hamilton mentions that a couple things have changed.
"First thing is, I don't get as frustrated with the drop out amount, latency and down time. I think the other thing that has changed as well is that we're using Skype video a lot more," he says.
"There's a great opportunity with UFB," adds Hamilton.
"You can't beat the speed and the improvement in latency and efficiency that you get with it. I think it's something about being part of this connected world, and that's pretty cool.
See the video here.
